Cedar Rapids’ First Street Parkade slated for demolition in July

CEDAR RAPIDS - Plans are moving ahead on two flood-damaged downtown parking structures, one which will be demolished and one which will be renovated.

City officials on Tuesday said they now plan to start the demolition of the First Street Parkade in July, with work expected to be complete by October.

The cost of the project is estimated at $840,000, with Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster funds helping to pay for the work. The city's short-term plans had called for putting a surface parking lot on the site, though the city now says such work will take place “as funds become available.”

The city had hoped to begin the parkade demolition last December, however state and federal historic officials held up the work pending a review of the 50-year-old parkade's historic status.

The city now has been given the go ahead to take down the structure - with its “unique spiral exit ramp” - if it creates a new historic district on Second Avenue SE as a tribute to the automobile.

On a second front, the city is moving ahead to renovate the underground parkade on May's Island between the Veterans Memorial Building and the Linn County Courthouse.

Mike Jager, the Veterans Memorial Building's manager for the Veterans Memorial Commission, said Tuesday that the commission's goal is to have the underground parkade open for business no later than June 2012. The initial renovation of the underground parkade, which was submerged in the flood of 2008, is expected to cost $1.2 million and is expected to be paid for with FEMA disaster funds. Additional work to the roof of the parkade will use city funds, Jager said.

In the weeks ahead, two private parking ramps in the downtown will be demolished in the block that houses The Roosevelt apartments to make way for the city's new convention center.